EPA Chief to NY Leaders: Protect Our Employees or We Pull Office Out

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Monday criticized New York leaders Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio for failing to maintain a safe environment for federal workers during the July “Occupy City Hall” protests and threatened to pull the agency’s office out of Lower Manhattan if a plan wasn’t put in place to protect employees, writes the New York Post.

Hundreds of protesters camped outside City Hall in July demanding lawmakers slash the New York City police budget. Some of the demonstrators “engaged in unwarranted, violent activity at the facility, breaking windows and defacing/destroying government property,” Wheeler wrote in a letter to Gov. Cuomo and NYC Mayor de Blasio.

“In the extreme, protestors smashed a turnstile door and forcefully entered the lobby of 26 Federal Plaza,” he added.

“Throughout these incidents, FPS has engaged EPA and other tenants to keep us informed of potential threats. However, maintaining law and order in New York City is not their responsibility; it is yours,” he added.

Wheeler in the letter demanded information from city and state leaders on what they were doing to protect EPA employees in New York.

“If you cannot demonstrate that EPA employees will be safe accessing our City offices, then I will begin the process of looking for a new location for our headquarters outside of the City that can maintain order,” he threatened.

“I have an obligation to our employees and if the City is unwilling or incapable of doing its job, I will do mine and move them to a location that can competently fulfill the basic mission of a local government,” he continued.

“Public safety is a core mission of state and local governments and your failure to fulfill that mission is putting EPA employees at risk.”

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